Note: Of Mosquitoes, Adolescents, and Reproductive Rights: Public Health and Reproductive Risks in a Genomic Age
By Luke Haqq. Full text here. The massive increase of microcephalic infants in recent years as a result of the pandemic spread of Zika virus has reinvigorated public responses to birth defect risks. However, the possibility of fetal abnormalities attends every pregnancy, yet public tools have not been efficiently leveraged to respond to this reality. This…
Continue ReadingNote: Payments on Debt After Discharge: When a Discharge Is Not Really a Discharge and the Limits of Taxpayer Recourse
By Robert C. Gallup. Full text here. Where the Tax Code and the collections industry collide, unique tax situations arise which leave taxpayers with little recourse. Creditors are required to “discharge” debt for tax purposes at specific times governed by Treasury Regulations, but they are still very much interested in and able to collect the debt.…
Continue ReadingInherent National Sovereignty Constitutionalism: An Original Understanding of the U.S. Constitution
By Robert J. Kaczorowski. Full text here. This Article is an original work of scholarship in several respects. As the title suggests, it presents a novel interpretation of the “original understanding” of the Constitution, which I call the inherent national sovereignty theory. This theory viewed the national government as a sovereign government and Congress as a…
Continue ReadingReproduction Reconceived
By Courtney Megan Cahill. Full text here. In many states, the only thing that separates a dad from a sperm donor is sex. Under federal law, sperm donations between sexually intimate partners undergoing artificial insemination are exempt from the mandatory—and expensive—testing requirements that apply to sperm donations between persons who are not sexually intimate. And according…
Continue ReadingPolicing Criminal Justice Data
By Wayne A. Logan & Andrew Guthrie Ferguson. Full text here. This Article addresses a matter of fundamental importance to the criminal justice system: the presence of erroneous information in government databases and the limited government accountability and legal remedies for the harm that it causes individuals. While a substantial literature exists on the liberty and…
Continue ReadingDrawing Lines Among the Persecuted
By Kate Evans. Full text here. Should a victim of persecution be denied protection in the United States if his persecutors forced him to participate in their campaign of terror? In its 2009 decision, Negusie v. Holder, the Supreme Court recognized the “difficult line drawing problems” presented by this question, but failed to offer concrete guidance…
Continue ReadingOn the Sociology of Patenting
By Dan L. Burk. Full text here. Recent commentary on the patent system has argued that there is little evidence supporting the incentive justification for patenting, so that continued faith in patents constitutes a kind of irrational adherence to myth or falsehood. While an obituary for the incentive theory of patenting is likely premature, the concept…
Continue ReadingNote: Toward Definition, Not Discord: Why Congress Should Amend the Family and Medical Leave Act To Preclude Individual Liability for Supervisors
By Taylor C. Stippel. Full text here. Since the mid-1990s, courts have construed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to allow for the imposition of individual liability on private sector supervisors. Reasoning that the FMLA’s definition of “employer” parallels the definition of “employer” in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and noting that individual liability…
Continue ReadingNote: Tweeting the Police: Balancing Free Speech and Decency on Government-Sponsored Social Media Pages
By Alysha L. Bohanon. Full text here. Government entities increasingly rely on their social media pages to inform and interact with their constituents. These posts can attract a wide range of comments from the public—some of which are thoughtful and informed, while others are downright hateful, racist, threatening, or vulgar. May a government entity remove…
Continue ReadingNote: Guardians of Your Galaxy S7: Encryption Backdoors and the First Amendment
By Allen Cook Barr. Full text here. Since Apple brought encryption technology into wide public use with its inclusion on the iPhone, there have been calls from law enforcement for technology companies to include backdoors—the ability to bypass the encryption and access information even if one does not have the password, fingerprint, et. cetera normally required…
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